Windows updates will soon take up a lot less space

Microsoft is rolling out a new way of updating Windows that will result in much smaller downloads, and thus less time spent sitting around waiting for the latest updates to complete.

The new Unified Update Platform (UUP) has been rolling out to a small sub-section of Windows Insider Preview users on desktop since December, but Microsoft’s ready to expand that to all Windows Insider users, before ultimately making it a part of its general release to the public as part of the Creators Update.

While it doesn’t sound very exciting, the end result of the new update process is downloads that are up to 35 percent smaller than the existing update mechanism when updating from one full build to another. It achieves this by using differential downloads, rather than a full download of the OS, which allows just the files that need to be updated to be downloaded and installed. Windows mobile updates will be delivered through the same platform too, which is arguably more important as these could potentially be downloaded using mobile data rather than Wi-Fi.

Smaller files means less space taken up on your hard drive, quicker downloads and quicker installation of updates. Admittedly, it might not be the most exciting part of the Creators Update (Paint 3D!), but given how irritating Windows Update can be in different ways, it’s nice to finally have something good to say about it.

Windows Insiders should already have access to the UUP, but everyone else will have to wait for the Creators Update, which should be ready for release next month.